Peninsula Trust Adds Holding Company

GLOUCESTER — Peninsula Trust Bank has created a holding company to give itself more flexibility should it decide to acquire other banks, said Kenny Smith, the executive vice president.

Bank shareholders on Tuesday approved the acquisition of the bank by the newly formed Mid-Atlantic Community Bank Group. No new stock was issued for the holding company. The share exchange will take effect in early July, at the start of the third quarter.

Bank officials have discussed creating the holding company for about a year and a half, at a time when many small banks are joining forces, Smith said.

"We wanted a little bit more control over our own destiny," he said.

The Bank of Franklin and the Bank of Sussex and Surry in January announced plans to merge into a single holding company, called United Community Bankshares Inc. And last year, James River Bankshares Inc. was created when the Bank of Suffolk and the Bank of Waverly merged.

Its 1995 net income climbed 36 percent to $1.02 million, or $1.29 a share.

Peninsula Trust is building an operations center at the northern end of Gloucester that will become its fifth branch when it opens in September or October, he said.

The bank also has signed a contract to buy the former Hot 'n Now property on J. Clyde Morris Boulevard, just down the road from its current Newport News branch in Newport Square shopping center, near the Interstate 64 intersection.

Peninsula Trust expects to relocate there in late 1997 or early 1998, Smith said. The lease on its Newport Square space, where the bank expanded to last summer, expires in October 1998.

First Union has held the lease on that building since the bank bought First American Bank in 1993.

Peninsula Trust decided to expand across the water after two local thrifts, TideMark Bank for Savings and Bay Savings Bank, ceased to exist.